RI DAILY

Manhattan's little, quieter island and beyond

Stories that matter, from the heart of the East River.

RI DAILY

Manhattan's little, quieter island and beyond

Reporting Roosevelt Island since sunrise.

Poem: I remember everything

I remember everything… I remember everything I remember everything promise, vow, commitment, engagement Name it Kept every one, no exceptions Afloat in mild night air, seventeen I knew I’d love her for all my life Can still feel the joy...

Poetry
happy woman showing wooden signboard saying open

I remember everything…

8a364-withjeremyataboutninemonths

I remember everything


I remember everything
promise, vow, commitment, engagement
Name it
Kept every one, no exceptions


Afloat in mild night air, seventeen
I knew I’d love her for all my life
Can still feel the joy
of my heart swelling, filling my body
Nothing prepares you for a first love
Heaven opens its gates, invites you in
God fuses hearts, never to be sundered
hands feeling, feet off the ground


I never betrayed the promise
ten years later, her at the door
flash switch in a dream within a dream
In love before a word was spoken
a smile stays with me forever


Rockies break the western horizon
False clouds turn hard and high
My country and all that 
purple mountains hogwash
spiked my veins
Imagined comes true


The child, new life before dawn 
weightless in my arms
damp human warmth
leaves me for another love
Sworn to last, turned to hate


But I remember and honor every promise
every vow in the night, never in vain
until the universe shifts
and you’re talking to a world
where no one hears
Every mountain built on shifting sands
Time betrays us all
makes liars of the most faithful
as everything changes, shifting
rinsing and washing and leaving
us with lonely intent
willing to be faked out again
by the frauds of history
shifting sands and all


But true

Related: The Mystery of What We Remember

Still Searching: Transparency Delayed at RIOC

Still Searching: Transparency Delayed at RIOC

New York’s Freedom of Information Law rests on a basic principle: government records belong to the public unless an agency can identify a lawful reason to withhold them.

New York’s Freedom of Information Law rests on a basic principle: government records belong to the public unless an agency can identify a lawful reason to withhold them. For Roosevelt Island residents, that right matters because RIOC controls public land, infrastructure, transportation, contracts and development without functioning as a locally elected government.